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Years ago, when we were house-hunting, we went to look at an old rectory near Bath. The house was much too big for us, but I had heard it had a cellar. What a cellar. It was built in fine creamy masonry like the house itself. It was approached down theatrically broad stone steps. And it was lined with deep rectangular stone bins for wine. Over each bin was a slate label inscribed in chalk. Running round the room it read Bollinger, Moet, Pommery, Roderer, Mumm, Perrier-Joet, Heidsieck....It was not difficult to picture the parson at his desk upstairs, scratching away at his sermon. Sunday morning. The text for today is from Timothy. Austerity and self-sacrifice. Pommery perhaps, before lunch; and a bottle of the Bollinger '09 with the lamb. Yes, austere is the word for it – but it finishes well.
-- Hugh Johnson, The Life Uncorked
"I don't quite understand why I've not been introduced to the missing Mother,” Mrs Peel said, as she gracefully emerged from their taxi.
From his gentleman's post at the taxi door, Steed raised an eyebrow – her tone had been cool, which was quite usual, yet also clearly angry, which was not. “My dear, do forgive me for saying this, but you are still viewed as an amateur.” When she gazed at him without speaking, he added hastily, “Not by me, heavens, no! By the Ministry, of which he is a crucial part.”
She shut the taxi door with a motion he'd last seen when she'd thrown a rather disposable villain into an extremely vulgar champagne fountain.
Suppressing a ripple of distaste at the memory of said fountain and its inferior wine, he leapt up beside her, settled his hat, and then put his hand to the lovely small of her back. As they were investigating in the heart of Mayfair – Bond Street, to be exact – she was wearing her town clothes. He could have named the designer of her suit and her shoes, but he felt it might be intruding. Still, he liked the swing of her jacket under his hand. Liked the body underneath the jacket, too.
Still cool, she said, "And where are we following the trail of him?"
He looked around. Old Bond Street was oddly crowded – some strange and out-of-place musical event on the corner, one of those rock-and-roll things, with passersby and hangers-on and a photographer or two –but he knew the place well even without anonymous tips. Ignoring the glittering lure of Asprey's, he looked further --"There. The art gallery? Interesting modern work."
"I had no idea you ever ventured past Sotheby's," she murmured, but followed his lead toward Duchamp Art.
This perforce led them toward the musical event, in the small crowd of which Bright Young Things in colourful short skirts (girls, as well as a couple of the boys) and sub-Beatles gear heedlessly passed around bottles of... “Oh, dear,” he said sotto voce, “Those children are not treating that Bollinger in the manner to which it is accustomed."
Mrs Peel smiled – a youthful amusement fleeting over her usual composure, which shocked him into remembrance of her real age. When she spoke, however, she seemed closer to him than to the children so disporting themselves. "They should be in school. And it's sad to see such shameless waste of a good vintage, isn't it?"
"I'm an advocate of austerity in all things," he agreed, and enjoyed immoderately her laugh.
Two mini-skirted girls rolled out of the crowd in front of their feet –quite literally – with an empty bottle of Bollinger closely following. They shrieked with what possibly was laughter, the tall and lovely blonde one pounding on the short brunette's shoulder and gurgling something about "Eddie."
"Oh dear, oh dear," Steed said at the same time as Mrs Peel, who added, "Are you all right?"
Their drunken laughter only grew louder.
"You mentioned something about austerity?” Mrs Peel said to him, dryly,and they went past the two girls now attempting to swim off the kerb, past the noise and the spilled Champagne, and into the cool white openness of the Duchamp Gallery. Empty of people and quieter here, as befitted a place of art and commerce – although he had his doubts about the aesthetic quality of a bicycle wheel hung from the ceiling,entitled “The Spin of Fate.”
The gallery angled into a hidden room at the end. "Shall we?" he said, although she already was striding toward it.
At which point a horribly familiar wheelchair dropped down from the ceiling, followed shortly by three toughs in predictable cat-burglar black.
"Mother's chair," he said to Mrs Peel. "I believe these gentlemen are up to no good."
"I have a sneaking suspicion you're right,” she said, as the first one drew nearer. She dropped her handbag, wriggled out of her jacket, and then kicked the first gentleman quite soundly in the head.
He would have applauded, but the second gentleman in black required his immediate attention. Within a moment this fella was sent into the bicycle wheel – at which Mr Steed did wince. Those spokes apparently had sharp edges.
Blood,just a bit of it, did spoil the white-and-black theme of theinstallation. Ah well, couldn't be helped.
As Mrs Peel advanced on the third gentleman, however, an unwelcome sound from the doorway of the gallery smote Mr Steed's ears. It might have been words, might even have been intended as English, but the two drunken schoolgirls from the kerb could only make high-pitched "eeeeeee" noises, shortly before they fell on their faces just across the threshold.
The remaining gentleman in black, escaping from Mrs Peel's hold, bolted for the door. Steed gave chase, but it didn't matter --
The shorter of the two drunken schoolgirls reached out a hand, gurgling something that sounded like “Bollybollybolly,” and caught the escapee by the ankle. His resulting slam into the doorframe was gratifyingly solid, the subsequent slide to the floor equally pleasant.
"Steed!" Mrs Peel called from just round the corner.
"Well done,” he said generally to the schoolgirls, tipped his hat to them, and then sauntered past the two broken cat-burglar blokes to find a doorway cut into the white expanse of wall, an open door there, and Mrs Peel bending over the bound and gagged forms of the Ministry official named Mother and what looked to be the gallery owner.
"Ah, yes,” he said. “And what do we call this installation?”
After bonds had been loosened, introductions effected, and the clean-up-and-transport crew from the Ministry dispatched, Steed escorted Mrs Peel past the empty, now broken “Spin of Fate” toward the door.
The two schoolgirls still sat on the threshold. They'd acquired from somewhere another bottle of Bollinger, which they were passing from hand to hand. When they looked up, Steed subdued a sigh – the dribbles of Champagne down their chins represented such a waste. But he said, “Thank you again for your assistance, ladies. What, may I ask, are your names?”
The short brunette-- who somehow had bits of tissue paper shredded around her person-- said thickly, "Edina Monsoon."
"Patsy Stone,” said the tall, blonde one. Then to Mrs Peel, with shocking crispness: “Nice shoes.”
"Thank you so much, Patsy. Edina,” Mrs Peel said, and she gently turned the girls' bottle right-side-up again before she and Steed passed into the street.
The musicians seemed to have finished. Bond Street stretched before them sunny and unblemished, an open road down toward Piccadilly and then St James, where his flat was located... His flat, which contained a rather nice bottle of Pommery ready for civilised consumption.
He drew Mrs Peel closer, feeling her strength and warmth even through his suit, and smiled into those deep brown eyes. “My dear, shall we retreat to the comforts of privacy and a good vintage Champagne ourselves?”
She returned his smile, and then deftly tucked a stray lock of his hair back under his hat. “What a fine idea, Steed.”
He could have kissed her, could have pulled her in and taken her mouth, there in front of the glittering windows of Asprey's. He didn't, of course. Never in public.
Austerity and self-sacrifice in all things -- that was Steed's motto.